Russia Mocks Trump Ceasefire Deal With Sea-Launched Missile Attack on Ukrainian Cities

Russian warships on Sunday mocked a ceasefire claimed by the White House to be in effect between Kyiv and Moscow and covering the entirety of the Black Sea, with the massed launch of naval cruise missiles at the Ukrainian capital and other civilian targets.

Ukrainian air watch networks first reported a probable incoming Russian long-range bombardment attack at shortly after 1 a.m. on Sunday, and missiles in the air and approaching half an hour later. Attempted and successful intercepts by Ukrainian air defense units began at 4:30 a.m. and all-clear was called by 7 a.m.

The Russian navy component of the strike, reported variously as eight to 12 Kalibr cruise missiles, was launched by warships operating in the eastern Black Sea offshore of Russia’s Krasnodar region. The missiles were fired in groups of four and flew at a low level, the Ukrainian UNIAN news agency reported.

Ukrainian military spokesmen said that air defense units spotted, in total, nine X-101 or X-55SM bomber-launched cruise missiles, eight sea-launched Kalibr missiles, six Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and 132 drones of various types entering Ukrainian airspace. The bombers launched missiles from airspace above Russia’s Saratov region and the ballistic missiles were fired from Russia’s Bryansk region, an Air Force statement said.

Ukrainian air defenses claimed shoot-downs of six bomber-launched cruise missiles, six ship-launched cruise missiles, one ballistic missile, and 40 attack drones.

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Another 53 simulator drones were tracked and ignored, and Ukraine’s Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, and Mykolaiv regions were affected by the Russian attack, the air force statement said. Kyiv Post reporters observed anti-aircraft missile launches and ground explosions during the Russian attack on the capital.

The White House, on March 25, announced Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea. Until the Sunday launch of cruise missiles against Ukraine by Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Kremlin had not openly contradicted the US government claim that Russia had promised not to engage in combat activities in the Black Sea basin. Ukraine has no navy.

Since Russia’s Black Sea Fleet evacuated its main base in Sevastopol, Ukraine in October 2023, major sea engagements have been rare in the Black Sea, because Russian warships have been careful to stay outside the range of Ukrainian shore-based anti-ship missiles.

The March 25 deal, according to the White House, also committed Ukraine and Russia not to attack each other’s energy infrastructure. Both Russia and Ukraine since then have repeatedly accused each other of carrying out power grid attacks.

The most visible violation of the energy ceasefire claimed by the US to be in effect, took place on place on March 27, with a Kremlin drone strike hitting the northern Ukrainian city of Poltava. Multiple Russian explosives-toting robot aircraft pounded an industrial district, leaving thousands of homes and businesses without electricity. Russia’s defense ministry, on April 2, accused Ukraine of using artillery and drones to hit power lines and transformers in Russia’s western Kursk region, cutting power to 1,500 households.

Officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration say a deal brokered by the US between Ukraine and Russia to end all hostilities is near final agreement, and that talks are promising. Russia has said it would agree to a peace deal but that it has extra conditions it wants to discuss. Ukrainian officials have said Russia is negotiating in bad faith.

On Friday, a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile hit an apartment block in the south-eastern city of Kryvyi Rih, killing 20 civilians and injuring at least 35 more people. Russia’s defense ministry said it had attacked a restaurant used by Ukrainian officers. Ukrainian media and local accounts said the strike hit civilians and their homes and was consistent with a long-running Kremlin policy of trying to force Ukraine to surrender by attacking civilians.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, in comments published by AP on Monday, Trump said: “We’re talking to Russia. We’d like them to stop. I don’t like the bombing. They’re bombing. It goes on and on. And every week people of…thousands and thousands of young people are being killed. And, uh, it’s a horrible thing.”

Trump’s comments made Sunday evening en route to Washington came some twelve hours after the Russian Black Sea missile launches, and three days after the bloody Kryvyi Rih missile strike.

Ukrainian officials said casualties in Kryvyi Rih were especially high because the Russian missile scattered cluster munitions that detonated over several apartment buildings.  The youngest child killed in the attack was three and the youngest treated for injuries was three months old, Ukrainian news reports said.

Bridget Brink, US Ambassador to Ukraine, set off an internet firestorm on Sunday with an “X” post on the Kryvyi Rih attack, saying that she was “horrified” by the strike and repeating a Trump mantra: “The war must end” – without mentioning it was Russia that launched the child-killing missile.

In a comparatively mild Ukrainian response to Brink’s omission, lawmaker Maryana Bezhula, on Sunday called on parliament to declare Brink persona no grata – and so she could be kicked out of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in weekend comments on the US response to the Kryvyi Rih attack, said that he was disappointed that the US Embassy in Kyiv did not acknowledge Russia had launched the missile, and that he hoped that Washington would pressure Russia to negotiate peace in good faith.

Kevin Hassett, White House Economic Council Director, told ABC news on Sunday that the reason the United States had on Thursday hit almost every country on Earth with new tariffs, but not Russia, was that negotiations for peace were in progress with Russia and that were the US to introduce new conditions into those talks reaching a peace would become more complicated.

“There’s, uh, obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine, and I think the president made the decision not to conflate the two issues. It doesn’t mean that in the fullness of time Russia isn’t going to be treated wildly different (sic: differently) than every other country. They’re in the middle of a negotiation,” Hassett said. “Would you, would you literally advise that in the middle of a negotiations that affects so many American and Ukrainian and Russian lives? You wouldn’t.”

The US on Friday did not make an exception for Ukraine from new tariffs, hitting the former Soviet republic with a blanket 10% tariff on Ukrainian goods imported to the US. European countries the White House has said must increase defense expenditures to deploy peacekeepers to Ukraine, would in the future, face a new  20% across-the-EU tariff, US officials said.

Zelensky, on Saturday, in nationally televised remarks, said that Kyiv saw American placement of tariffs on Ukraine while not doing so on Russia, during a peace talks process, as an unfriendly step but not seriously damaging to the Ukrainian economy. US-Ukraine trade is insubstantial ($3.5 billion/year) and arms transfers by Washington to Kyiv, were they to take place, would not be affected by the Trump tariffs, the Ukrainian leader said.